Todd Howard Says The Elder Scrolls VI is 'Still a Long Way Off' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 10 November 2025 / 2,642 Views
Bethesda Game Studios boss Todd Howard in an interview with GQ stated The Elder Scrolls VI is "still a long way off."
The Elder Scrolls VI was first announced over seven years ago at E3 2018 with a teaser trailer. The game spent many years in pre-production as Bethesda focused on Starfield until its release in September 2023.
"I’m preaching patience," said Howard. "I don’t want fans to feel anxious."
He added, "We have hundreds of people on Fallout right now, with 76 and some other things we're doing, but The Elder Scrolls 6 is the everyday thing."
Howard was asked how it feels to be developing a new The Elder Scrolls game again and he stated, "I do like to have a break between them, where it isn’t like a 'plus one' sequel. I think it’s also good for an audience to have a break – The Elder Scrolls has been too long, let’s be clear. But we wanted to do something new with Starfield. We needed a creative reset."
In April of this year Bethesda officially announced and released The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC via Steam and Microsoft Store, and Xbox Game Pass. It has been played by over nine million people as of July 25, 2025.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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Nintendo should announce Earthbound 4 but not release until 40 years after announcement. Then Todd Howard as a head in a Jar can aim to beat that record.
As much as I don’t mind when devs take their time… this is taking it a bit too far. No game should ever take possibly an entire decade to develop (and if it does need the time, then don’t reveal it when development has only just begun).
Not only will this be one of the longest dev cycles of any game in history, hut also among the longest waits between reveal and release.
they are secretly in competition with taketwo
GTA6 vs TES6
The original reveal was a fake announcement, done only to avoid a backlash when they announced a live service and some phone games.
The game didn't go into full production until after Starfield released.
source?
About when it entered full development? The source is the time they actually straight up said it would enter full development after Starfield released. You can Google it, there will be 50 articles.
ah I see it now
They game didn't begin full production until Starfield. It was in pre-production before then.
But I think this is definitely a case for expanding a studio into 2 teams out of respect for the fans. The resources are there.
Probably the most obvious thing I've ever heard
The game will likely not release until 2028 at the earliest, with that being 5 years of full production.
Really they should not have teased it back in 2018.
Youd have thought they have built up a second dev team. Assuming the 2028 date I guessed for TES6, with 1 dev team they probably won’t get into full production of Fallout 5 until 2029 so that one won’t be out until mid 2030s - 20 whole years after Fallout 4. At that point, who is even going to remember that IP?
Bethesda's output is so slow post fallout 4
2 years after starfield and we only have 1 dlc that was mediocre at best.
Fallout 4 had 6 in one year
At this rate ES6 is probably 2030
It has become a trend across the industry. Naughty dog hasn't released a game in over 5 years and there next game likely won't be out till 2027. Cd project red are haven't released a new game since 2020 and again probably won't have anything till 2027. Rockstar 2018, next game late 2026. Bend studio 2018, next game who knows when.
To be fair, COVID caused major problems for gaming development. For 3 years studios faced many challenges and needed to adapt, without a doupt this caused a major slowdown, that said...
Naughty Dogs, Rock Star, CD projekt Red... They are doing fine in my book. 3 of the most awarded game studios in the last 15 years, let them cook.
About Bethesda Game Studios...
They are in bad shape, terrible shape... Damn, TES situation is just @#$#@. This game will take another 5 years, at least.
As much as I love cyberpunk now, it was a disaster at launch. Personally naughty dog peaked on the ps3, with uncharted trilogy and last of us, everything since then has been meh. I'll take rockstars pre gta v output over it's post gta v output any day. Gta 3, vice city, san andreas, iv, chinatown wars, red dead redemption, la noire, manhunt 1+2, max payne 3, bully, midnight club series, warriors and more vs red dead 2. Everything I named was made between 2001 and 2012. As good as gta 6 might be it will never live up to all of these games combined, not even close.
Can you give us morrow remake to make up for the delay?
They would have to rebuild the game entirely or at the very least rebuild the entire combat system. It's too dated by todays standards and wouldn't pass for a good game anymore
They should let bluepoint remake it
Mid/end PS6 generation is probably a good guess.
